Republicans are happy lemmings

by | Dec 1, 2017 | Features, Politics | 2 comments

It’s not just liberals who dislike the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Thirty-five percent of conservative Republicans think we should raise corporate taxes. Less than half favor a corporate tax cut. Self-described moderate Republicans oppose regressive tax cuts even more strongly. Congressional Republicans are marching like dull rodents toward a bill that displeases many of their most devoted supporters.

One needn’t strain to understand this bill’s unpopularity. In the words of blogger Kevin Drum, the TCAJ makes “appalling” tax policy. At the core of the bill is a twelve-figure corporate tax cut. The vast majority of economists doubt it will grow the economy. The huge, staggeringly unpopular corporate reduction is complemented by a direct gift to the Trump Organization in the form of a “pass-through” tax cut, and the coup de grace is an end to estate taxes. In all, the least popular first-year president on record will pocket a billion dollars. Small wonder that he is one of the bill’s few fans.

Rational politicians would be deeply wary of a large, widely opposed reform package. We have a precedent for this. As the process of writing the ACA dragged on, Democratic politicians began to search for an exit strategy. Even liberal stalwart Barney Frank thought it was a “mistake” to press forward. His reasoning was simple: Changing healthcare is always unpopular, and Democrats would pay a heavy price for passing a reform bill. One would think the Party that benefited from the Democrats’ unpopular drive for reform would have imbibed the lessons of 2010. Instead, they are executing a copycat suicide.

And make no mistake, “tax reform” will cost Republicans dearly. The reason is simple: Voters revolt against bills that harm their everyday lives. Tax policy definitely falls in that category, as we saw when Margaret Thatcher’s “Poll Tax” (not to be confused with Jim Crow voter suppression) killed her career. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will hit voters squarely on April 15, and they will not like it. Especially in the middle-class districts that could devastate Republicans.

The TCAJ is a political disaster in plain sight. How Republicans convinced themselves not to see it is a mystery worthy of the most brilliant psychologists.

2 Comments

  1. Troy

    It’s all academic now. 51 Senators, many with sincere misgivings, toed the party line and voted this piece of trash into being. While not law quite yet, and amended numerous times, it passed without the majority of those who voted for it knowing what was truly in it. Of course, blazing the trail down the road to obscurity for the rank and file citizens of North Carolina was our own Richard Burr and Thom Tillis.

    It is my understanding Alex that this bill, when it is signed into law won’t go into effect until after the November 2018 elections. Don’t want the voters find out what is really going to happen to them when this bill takes hold as they wait for the crumbs to drop from the Corporate coiffures to their hands…waiting; always waiting. But they just never seem to fall.

    And why should they? Business is running at a level of efficiency heretofore unrealized, the work is getting done with fewer employees making less in wages. ALEC has succeeded in getting “right to work” laws passed in most blue states to pull the teeth of organized labor that could help labor negotiate to improve the plight of the workers. No, this has the crowning tidal surge to the perfect Republican storm. So in that regard, what kind of a moron do you have to be to think that CEO is going to pass money down to the rank and file?

    • Alexander H. Jones

      Obamacare didn’t go into effect in 2014–four years after the midterms–and it still hammered Democrats in 2010. Voters read the news.

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